


Senses

by arisaema



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-16
Updated: 2004-12-16
Packaged: 2017-10-29 16:15:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arisaema/pseuds/arisaema
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some old old Remus angst</p>
            </blockquote>





	Senses

**Author's Note:**

> Super old thing I have up here b/c it is one of the few things I have from my HP writing days. Don't expect much.

Remus was in pain. He was used to pain, actually. Every month he slowly, agonizingly changed from man to wolf. He was acutely aware of how every muscle slid and reshaped and tore on the bones as his mind fought to stay human, eventually losing to a swirl of scent and howling.  
This feeling, though, was different. It was worse. He would have rather undergone 100 transformations in a row than feel this new sort of pain. His breath stopped when he heard the news, and he wondered wildly how he'd ever gotten his lungs to move before. The room spun. He knelt to the ground, oblivious to the ministry official who brought the word awkwardly letting himself out of the house. James. Lily. Peter. Dead. His mind bent around the words.  
Another name fought at the back of his throat. He tried to push it away, wildly theorizing that if he just kept the name from being spoken that what had been done by the owner of that name would not be true. But it crawled up Remus's throat and burst, with the breath he had been holding, into the night with more feeling than it had ever been screamed before.  
"SIRIUS"  
Remus collapsed and lay there, on the floor, for the rest of the night. Not sleeping, just staring. As he lay there he tried to ignore the hollow part of him where he felt his heart must have been only hours before. The agony he felt knowing that he was completely alone in the world was so many times worse than that of a full moon. Before, at least, he knew that when the pain was over, he would be human again, and he would have his friends to comfort him. His James. His Peter. His Sirius.  
But this pain could not be comforted by James. Sirius had killed him.  
"No! Voldemort killed him. Sirius wouldn't. He COULDN'T," he whispered to no one.  
"But he DID." Remus sobbed. "He did."  
The next 12 years were spent in a sort of dream. Remus did odd jobs here and there. Not many people hired werewolves. When he wasn't working, he was reading, throwing his whole self into the world of pages, needing to do something to keep his mind off of the man he still couldn't help loving.  
For a while, it seemed that without him every breath was a struggle, every morning woken to alone and still alive was another reminder of him. He was so much a part of Remus that in his absence, Remus felt like the husk of a person, or a shadow, wanting to be filled with the presence of something both comforting and cold. Every blink was haunted with the image of Sirius burned into Remus's eyelids. And he loved it.  
He hated himself for that. He hated himself for wanting to see him again. To feel the touch of Sirius's fingers across his cheek. To hear his laughter. To taste the softness of the lips he know so well. He wanted to experience every sense, but the only thing he felt was shame.  
He knew that this man had killed his only friends, and he despised every inch of him for it. But when he awoke at night with dreams of the old Sirius, the one who was full of love and light, he couldn't help but love him back. The dreams were so real, Remus almost expected to reach out and touch Sirius in bed beside him, but when Remus stretched his arm out, and with trembling fingers grasped only sheets, He remembered.  
And he felt it again. The feeling that made werewolf transformations seem like a a gentle summer breeze. It was the feeling that his very soul had been ripped from him and thrown in a cage, many many miles away, surrounded by hooded fear and walls and a sign that read Azkaban.


End file.
